


The Fisher Prince

by Arctic_Cyclist



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Batman: Streets of Gotham
Genre: Background non consent, Bechdel Test Pass, Chock full of canon, Gen, Poison Ivy is a character so expect non consent, References to the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries, and mythological references, barely, but a Poison Ivy story without her sexually assaulting someone is out of character, dick!bats, not the focus of the story - Freeform, she is one of DC's canon sexual predators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-21 22:25:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9569432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arctic_Cyclist/pseuds/Arctic_Cyclist
Summary: After a fight gone wrong, Robin runs to Robinson Park with Poison Ivy in pursuit. It does not go as she expects.





	

**Author's Note:**

> One of the major themes of Morrison's and Snyder's runs is how Batman in general, and Bruce Wayne in particular, is Gotham's Fisher King. This plays with that, and the fact that The Golden Bough is a major part of Damian's character concept and development. 
> 
> I apologize for what I've done to Dick and Stephanie. If it's any consolation, it's on par with what Ivy has done in canon to Bruce and the boys.

The night was cool and full of stars. Roberto Bolaño, 2666

The maple reaches out its silver and green hands to catch him; branches poking and prodding until he was concealed. A leaf wraps around his mouth to caution him. _Silence, silence,_ it whispers. _Don't let her hear. Be a bird, a squirrel, a sharp toothed hunter. Not human, not a boy in the colors of dying leaves and night._

"Robin? Robin, where are you my little boy wonder?" Ivy's sing song voice is melodious and sensual, smooth and layered with promises of pleasures. If he were older, or if he were a normal child, a standard issue city kid who's never learned to read the white or green books, it would be tempting. Perhaps even irresistible. Right now it's rough and as painful as being grated to remove the gravel after one of his failed lessons. It's too human. Wrapped in the safety of the tree his great great grandmother planted, it is discordant and does not belong. Unnatural as her heavy scent and tread, as unnatural as the whispering invasive vines behind her of bindweed and kudzu. "Come out, come out wherever you are. You know you can't hide from me in my park. My darlings will tell me where you are, the grass will hold you for me."

There is a tinge of doubt in her voice, an uncertainty based on years of fighting Batman in the park his ancestors created and maintained. The grass never turns on a Wayne, no matter his mask. Old plants have deep roots and long memories. They know the blood that serves them. Nor have plants ever turned on his mother's family. Even Ivy's hybrids cringe away from the wrath of Demons, the irritation of al Ghuls.

Through the leaves, he can see her pause, one foot lifted, her mouth and eyes wide circles of surprise narrowing to thin lines as she remembers. Behind her the weeds and vines are coiling and hungry. His Batman is tangled in their grasp. Alive and barely aware, suit torn by grasping creeping vines and tendrils that are invading the remains of his uniform as he groans and shudders obscenely. Richard's face is marked with red: blood, lipstick, and welts. Nausea and uncertainty course through Damian at the sight of Grayson's bared skin, at the way the man rocks back and seems to welcome the violation.

 _Sh. Sh._ The maple runs sharp twigs through his hair. _Don't look, seedling, little sprout._ It pokes and prods him to the far side where a grand white oak that knew his ancestor Darius Wayne reaches out branches for him. A reminder of the many afternoons spent training in the park with Nell, Katy, and Colin masked as play. Adults, even those trained by Batman, will frown on children roaming the roofs, but not children racing through a park. Even if, as he explains to his fellow ten year olds, man's constructs are easier to navigate. The test of a ninja, of a hunter, of any martial arts master is the ability to move silently and swiftly through nature. To pass unseen and unheard through branches and bamboo, grass and stone, sand and snow. To become one with the surroundings so much so that the living land forgets you're there. Or at least accepts you as a part of it.

Man's world conforms to humans and pseudo humans. Nature requires confirmation not conformation.

All of them have made this jump successfully at least twice, and attempted it dozens of times. The trees of the Wayne Arboretum are hard teachers. They do not make it easy for children who would be heroes.

 _Go, go,_ the maple nudges him. _Strangling vines will find and kill both of us here. The spring. Get to the spring._ All the other trees echo the maple tree. Even the tangled roses, wild and tame, and the forbs, most older than him and many older than Alfred, chime in the chorus. _Further in, move further in, old blood. She won't challenge the center for you. You can demand the safety of the other hunters._

Swallowing down his nerves, he leaps with a gasp. Spreading its arms wide, the centuries old tree welcomes him and then draws close its boughs to hide the refugee. Twig fingers grab and guide him. He hazards a glance back at the self appointed mistress of the green. She's moving with an unaccustomed wariness. It's probable that she's never been told off by plants before, or faced their open rebellion. If she had known his parentage, she wouldn't have herded him into Robinson Park. Old blood carries certain privileges, and an old blood who preforms the rituals and rites has rights that supersede hers. He whispers a prayer of thanks to his ancestors without thinking and cringes. 

It is too much to hope that his grandfather, great grandsire, and Simon Hurt neè Thomas Wayne didn't hear. They always do, and like all demons and devils, will desire more. More devotion. More adoration. More love and loyalty. His body, his soul, his absolute obedience. More, more, more and he is worn out from giving.

Her voice echoes through his joints and bones; up from where he is connected to the tree, his fingers and toes, the soles of his feet and shoulder blade. For the plants alone she speaks, assuming that he is like his predecessors and doesn't speak the old tongue or know how to listen to the land.

"Have I not protected you? Cared for you? Sheltered you from blades and saws, driven off or destroyed those who would burn your branches and boles? If not for me, you would be dead and the soil barren. Is the child here? The boy who fancies himself a bird or bat? You owe me the surrender of Robin!"

The hop hornbeam, of ancient roots and youthful branches, a tree that has suckered itself back after being harvested three times, holds him close. Ironwood is not known for betrayal, and its loyalty has never belonged to the interloper. It remembers the aftermath of the quake, and her choice to offer its branches as firewood. Ironwood does not betray, it does not forget, and it never forgives. 

_Robin?_ The forest answers her in its leafy chorus. _There are many robins here sheltering in our branches. Which one incurred your wrath?_ There is rustling like water, like strong winds, and the multitude of birds take flight to circle her with their protests and songs. _What could a little flyer have done that you bring forth the strangling invaders to harm and destroy us in pursuit?_

Even from meters and meters away, he can see the muscle spasms of rage on her face. Grayson's groans are more pain than pleasure. He flinches in guilt at being the cause, however tangential his responsibility may be. He should have been faster. Smarter. Wiser. He should have seen the trap, recognized the bait. It's what Robin does: he protects Batman.

The park knows how he feels and doesn't care. Branches pull him forward. Leaves will not let him turn back.

"Why are you protecting the human child? What could- Talia." The name is a feral growl. The next tree, one of the inner ones, a plane tree planted by death obsessed Alan Wayne, reaches for him. Its leaves show the yellow edge of insect panic at the woman creature's rage, at his mother's name. Both are beloved by plants, loved and feared by growing things. His mother more than Isley. Isley does not command the respect and attention of the lichens and moss, of fungi, bacteria, viruses, and others. A mere goddess, she is limited in her scope and easily forgotten. Fickle and faithless, her kind come and go.

Demons are different. Every forest, every spring, mountain, valley, and plain dreams of having a demon of its own. A demon can die, will die, dissolve in memory to sleep and dream and rise again in different skin. They slip up through cracks and shatter stone. Erasing the traces of the civilizations that birthed or annoyed them, they adapt and return to their precious places. As everyone keeps pointing out, he is a demon by birth and blood. Sometimes, when the stress of repressing is too much and he feels himself cracking, he agrees with those (Father. Drake. Cain. The Gordons. Almost all the heroes and villains.) who claim that's all he is and ever will be.

The truth is he doesn't disagree with Isley. Officially, he has to as a member of his father's forces, but he can't deny the shivers of raw pleasure from exploring places devoured by nature as a child. Like a djinn, he delights in the towns and civilizations that were destroyed or abandoned to be reclaimed by sand and soil. In his mind, when even the ghosts and spirits are gone and only cynical nature remains is best. He is young and contains all the nihilism of youth. It has yet to shift and harden into al Ghul anarchy. It's doubtful, he knows, that he'll live long enough for that to happen.

"He's Talia's spawn, isn't he? Zatanna said so, and I didn't believe her. I just thought they were being bitter bitches." She's muttering, but not only is his hearing exceptional, the park is conveying everything to him as an investment on his life. "Stupid. I should have realized- No. The swamp didn't offer him sanctuary, but he wasn't Robin then and barely al Ghul. Would it now? Could Waylon corner him there again?"

The answer is no. Killer Croc tried last week in his bizarre quest to devour Damian. The animal is focused on eating him in a way he'd never been for any other bat or vigilante. Not that it scares him, he was telling the truth when he told Batman it was Croc's rank breath that bothered him. The noxious breath and the foul salvia that refuses to come out of his uniform leave Robin deeply unsettled. When Croc had found his trap twisted around on him by Robin five days ago, the boy had made sure that they'd discussed oral hygiene. He'd pried the reptile's jaw open and in the fine tradition of small fearless birds cleaned his teeth like he was the criminal's personal hygienist. There had been brushing and flossing, scraping, polishing, and rinses all accompanied by lectures and admonitions about how ridiculously stupid the creature would look with dentures. 

On further contemplation there might be a reason why Croc was indifferent to eating Drake and fixated on him. Drake was bony, small, and smelled like a teenager. It's hard to imagine he'd taste good or be a satisfactory meal. There's always a chance of indigestion or heartburn when dealing with Red Robin.

Fatgirl, on the other hand, would be delicious. She's well marbled and smells like baked goods, syrup, sunshine, and ironically since she never has any, good quality coffee. Brown smells like the perfect morning. Like watching the sunrise after a restful night's sleep and before having a day where no one hurts and no one dies. It's a good thing that most of the villains and criminals pass her by, that she and Killer Croc aren't on each other's radars. He'd have to break Father's rules if she died again. 

Ivy has her too, or did. Grayson had shoved him aside at the sight, over to the Commissioner who'd cupped a protective hand over Damian's eyes. It all went to hell after that. 

Brown's tough. Brown's smart. Brown's resourceful. She beat the Black Mercy, she can beat Ivy's pollen and weeds. She has to, otherwise he'll have to make a decision he can't reverse. 

The elm, a rare survivor of the plague that exterminated its species, hands him to the weeping willow. It lets him down. Pausing in its branches, he stares at the motionless pool full of stars. No fish swim in its deceptive depths despite attempts over the years to stock the sweet water. A glance upwards confirms that the sky is the normal sodium yellow and gray with only the boldest stars and planets shining through the pollution. The Milky Way and constellations that fill the water are a reflection of truth, not reality. 

Stepping forward, he kneels next to the water and removes his gloves. At his touch, a swirl of green rises, a reflection of radiation hitting the ionosphere, of the sky burning to protect the world below. Or something else. Something deeper. 

It means nothing. Like the majority the wellsprings of life, and all of the Lazarus Pits of Gotham, this one has been extinguished by use. Blackfire used it up as opposed to his family. 

Grandfather has tried to revive it. Sometimes it's possible. There had been whispering, in the League amongst the highest ranks, that a true born son or daughter could be given to a pit. That they could infuse the waters with their youth and life force. Tossed in while alive, they could bring life through their deaths. It worked for Brother Blood. Child sacrifice with the aid of Trigon's might kept his handful of Pits flowing and strong for him. Other well used Pits, even Blackfire's favorite, have the same association with sacrificed children. A line his family refused to cross.

At night he'd lie awake and wonder about what would happen if he stepped into the toxic green waters. If others, the children from before, had been able to hear the water sing and call. If it smelt like pollen and green tea to them too, with a touch of something unidentifiablely sharp and clean. He's never been immersed. The Pits do not know his name and are forced to use general terms when calling him.

This spring, long ago consumed, is silent. The trees are silent. All the plants have gone still. A winter stillness, a subarctic and arctic stillness. Not suited to a land that always had plant usable daylight. An uneasy stillness that awaits the arrival of the hunter. Aside from the rasp of his lungs, the convulsive shudder of his muscles, and the slow swirling of green below, there's no movement. Not even mycelia murmur in the soil. 

Another tendril of green emerges in the pond. Eel like it twists up to brush his fingers, as smooth and warm as a porpoise or seal. Playful as an otter, it invites him in. There's a connecting pond in the caves below the manor. Father has swum it, there are multiple easy stops for air. He knows the gate's pass code. He could go home. Get help. Get weed killer. Father has to have something, several things he can use to stop Dr Isley's current rampage. He could...

"Poor child." A world of sorrow is in Poison Ivy's voice as she says, "I will weep and wither for you. I'll even plant you a garden of lettuce and barley, fennel and herbs. I'll cover all the rooftops with them."

"Where is Batman?"

"You mean Nightwing."

"Yes. No. He's Batman now. I-Ching said so. The Tao says he is, ergo he is."

Her look is thoughtful, and her step is cautious. To challenge an initiate of the mysteries at one of the springs, even a silent spring guarded by a boy who's instruction was cobbled together from incomplete sources, is to court annihilation. Not even Zeus at the height of his powers and worship would have risked it. It's why, unlike hundreds of others, his pantheon still rules and has power in a fashion of sorts. 

Gods come and go. Demons are forever. It is a truth hammered throughout his infancy and childhood, ten years of repeated mantra. An entire lifetime. Pan will always return to dance through the forests, even if by another name. Dionysus will rise and die and rise again to drive madness and delight and abundance. Hades and Persephone will change their names, but they will return over and over again in their endless courtship. Deathless through dying. 

It's complicated and hard to fully understand, Grandfather says, and he's ten centuries old. How can he, who has only ten years to his life, be expected to comprehend it?

"Can you hear it? The Tao?"

"The Tao that can be perceived and understood is not the full Tao," he recites in the language they both know, the one heard through fingers and toes, elbows, hands, knees, and feet. She shudders and groans like Grayson on the vines. 

The waters remain still, the green dancing around his hand and they wait. At a dètente, drawn by rules they both only half understand and awaiting a change. A catalyst. The dawn, a herald that the night will be over. Piss poor training is all he has, but the rocks tell him that only another of his kind, an initiate, or a avatar by water as well as blood could successfully challenge him here. Swamp Thing's or Animal Man's daughters, or Solomon Grundy. Not that any of them would. He thinks.

Silence is spreading around him, through him. The birds, the robins of shell not of choice, have yet to start heralding the dawn. Not just them, all of the winged ones are silent. Even the subsonic, supersonic, and just audible calls of the bats that hunt and roost in the park are missing. It's so quiet that he fancies he can hear the soft crackle of the aurora in the pond. As if it were forty below and he's not in temperate Gotham, but instead is bundled and still in the deathly deep cold taiga watching the spirit bridges twist, dance, and ripple through the atmosphere.

The sky burns and a portion of him dreams of drowning in the waters of life, of diving down to find and follow the bridges, of erasing himself and all he has done to become something pure and valued. 

Poison Ivy is not a mother. She has never brought forth creation from her body, not even in the artificial way his mother has. She's not an initiate, nor a true avatar, or an immortal. She is not even him. In this place and moment the knowledge settles and crystallizes. There is only defeat for her here. They both are aware of it well before Batgirl's abomination of an electric goop-a-rang screams in and strikes the woman, dragging the awakening world with it. 

He glances at the young woman who wears the dawn's colors and promptly looks away with flaming ears. Unhooking and extending his cape with one hand, he gives his usual tut and says, "Your uniform is a disgrace. No one needs to see that you have matching underwear with your logo on it."

"I disagree," Ivy mumbles, "I needed to know if the carpet matches the drapes."

"No, you didn't." Batgirl replies as she aims a firm kick at the older woman's temple. Accepting the sunny yellow cape, she sighs and rolls her neck as she ties it sarong style. "Thanks. Mine's protecting our Batman's modesty."

Nodding, he pulls his other hand out of the water's grasp and puts his gauntlets back on. The green fades away with the truth, and the waters turn a predawn black. Batgirl frowns and arches an eyebrow at him. Attempting to deflect he asks, "Bat underwear?"

"Inside joke with Supergirl. She got them for the anniversary of our first team up."

"I got ice cubes and a shock collar." He scowls. "What's the joke?"

"I'll explain it some other time. Are you going to tell me what happened here?" 

He ducks his head and remembers to pull a glove off again to brush the trees, his allies, in gratitude. "No."

"Some sort of family mysticism? Something to be discreetly left out of our reports again?"

"As happens with distressing frequency, Girl Blunder, you are correct." His fingers trail silver green and pale gold, as do his footprints in the gloaming. 

"Seems only fair." She chirrups. "As would be you picking up crepes for breakfast from that place you like. Since you're the only one still fully clothed."

"If Agent A approves. You should suggest it, not me." 

The weeds wither away at his approach, but the plants that belong, the ones he knows, stretch out for the day. Old rites, old rights, and weekly volunteering to help maintain the park he loves have brought about a defeat the villainess should have seen coming. Maybe that's what Grayson meant when he was explaining the concept of community crime fighting.

**Author's Note:**

> Katy is a canon character. She's the child prostitute that Colin saves from her pimp and john before Dick and Dami save her from Firefly's sub dermal bomb. I like to think she's part of Damian's pre-death Scooby squad. Darius Wayne was a revolutionary war leader, his relationship to Simon Hurt is never spelled out. He's either his father or brother, my reading leans towards father.
> 
> The white book is a term used for winter by hunters and trappers in the circumpolar north. The ability to read it can mean the difference between life and death. The green book is summer. It has also been used as a term for jungles and rainforests. Since it's canon that Damian's training included survival and tracking in all terrains, it's safe to assume that he knows the how to read them. 
> 
> Ivy in canon tends to use plants that are nonnative and invasive. Her dedication to nature, unlike Ra's and Talia's (Canonically Talia has has implemented several legal plans to reduce pollution and move people past oil dependence. Most notable was her transitioning Lex Corp into a completely green company with no carbon emissions.) really depends on her ability to profit from it. Since al Ghuls have a consistently holistic approach to nature and focus on the conservation and protection on native ecosystems, it makes sense in my little brain that plants, animals, and the harder to categorize phylums would side with them over Ivy. In Gotham City Sirens there's the storyline where Talia and Zatanna mention that Robin is Talia's son, and Talia casually destroys most of the park and Ivy's greenhouse with impunity. It also has the implication there and in other stories that if it came down to a fight between them, Talia would come out on top every time. Paul Dini, the writer, is an mild BruTalia shipper (one of the many who were upset about the rape retcon of Damian's conception), and the writer who started Ivy's redemption as a lesbian environmentalist who cares for children. He also writes Ivy as an unapologetic sexual predator, and added vore as one of her fetishes. I love complex female characters, of which Dini is an undisputed master of writing, and loathe how the fandom attacks Talia for an ooc act that only two writers and a bunch of racist and sexist editors love but will ignore the consistent canon of Ivy's sexually assaulting people. 
> 
> The older I get, the more I appreciate how badass classic Stephanie Brown was. Unfortunately, people gloss over or outright ignore that Bruce and others have said she'd be Tim's equal if given the same training and opportunities, and the fact that by the end of her Batgirl run she was almost at Dick's level of badassery. Dick, mind you, who canonically Ra's refers to as Detective, who outmatchs Ra's in a fight, and held out longer against the Sensei than Bruce.
> 
> Damian being borderline suicidal is canon. It's a nice reference to his past as a child soldier and assassin. Almost all children who are forced to kill as prepubescents will display suicidal tendencies. The younger they were, and the more kills they committed, the greater their ensuring PTSD and depression; which are major challenges to rehabilitation and reintegration. One of the best parts of current Batman storylines is Damian's transition into more childish, age appropriate behavior, and displays of happiness. It's a direct tie to Robin: Son of Batman and the forgiveness and acceptance he earned. Kamara-Umunna's And Still Peace Did Not Come, and Singer's Children at War talk about how important reconciliation between the children and their victims is. One of the surest predictors that they won't be tempted back into that life style or suicide is if they are offered forgiveness by their families and communities.
> 
> I miss the bromance of Brown, Grayson, and Wayne. They were the best, and I don't care what anyone says.


End file.
